A memory of war and sola.., p.25
A Memory of War and Solace, page 25
Savat sat with their back against the wall; knees drawn up and head bowed, sobbing quietly. They would keep for a few moments longer. I reached out with the power that flowed through me, finding Eelie far below in the dungeon cell. They were still unconscious from their fall.
I spun fine tendrils through them, healing the damage that they had received in our fight, and in its ending.
…the world is broken…
I stood beside them as they walked past me out of the roiling conflagration that had been the squalid tenement in Fin-Torfall. They didn’t look back. The fire was beginning to spread to nearby buildings.
They left nothing behind but ashes. Nothing of their sister Medi, nothing of the horrors of Jame’s attentions. They thought they left nothing of themself.
There was nothing. The world was broken.
I reached out and touched their shoulder, holding them still. They didn’t resist—there was no intention for the moment; no self. They were simply an empty husk devoid of mind and purpose.
“Eelie,” I said. I waited.
It took a long time before the child turned to me. Longer still for their eyes to find me.
“You are strong and powerful,” I said, using a trickle of power to seat the words deeply in their mind. “You are also wounded and in pain. Your pain and your injuries are not your fault. They do not disfigure the beauty that is within you, and they cannot destroy your strength, unless you let them.”
The words felt inadequate; impotent. There was nothing I could say to ease the grief, I knew. I knew also that a part of me didn’t want to. A part of me wanted them to keep their pain and suffering and self-hate for what they had done to Sem.
They nodded at me, seeming to find something in my words. Then they looked back at the burning embers for a moment and began walking again. They were leaving Fin-Torfall behind, and maybe they would find the peace they sought somewhere else.
• • •
The power still flowed through me like a raging river; like the relentless tide breaking upon the shore. It was time to end that torrent.
I reached out with my mind, splitting the power twice and twice and twice, doubling and doubling until I had tens of thousands of fine threads of power, each finding an individual mind in that turbulent mass of belligerent soldiers. Black-clad and gray, I found them and I delved into their minds, damping their anger, their fear, and their hostility. I found their compassion and their calm, and I stoked them.
I found the leaders and I nudged their minds to desire calm, urged them to armistice.
There was injury and trauma and pain in abundance, strewn across a mile and more of battle lines, and I eased the worst of what I found. I drove a rolling wave of peace and solace over the land.
As I worked, I felt the power diminish. The slowing of the battle was constraining its source. The less the warriors raged, the less pain they caused and the less I could influence them. I drew my focus higher up the ranks to the leaders, directing the power I had left to try to stop the fighting.
I found the mind of the Blackcoat general, and whispered a relentless mantra of peace and surrender deep into his consciousness. I gave him the certainty that his lord wished the war to end. I reminded him of his wife and child and how much he wanted to hold them again.
I found Feren’s mind, and I spoke to him in words and in feelings. It is over. Let it be done. Savat has surrendered to me, and poses no more threat to the lands. His armies will stand down if they’re given quarter.
I felt his mind react in wonder and joy at my presence.
You have done well, I sent him. Thank you.
I let go of the last threads of pain and power, and came back to my own consciousness. Horns were sounding, brightly calling inscrutable signals over the battlefield.
Savat was watching me, silent and guileless.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” they said in a small voice. “I don’t… know what to say. What I’ve done…”
“Do you remember what I told you all those years ago, after your breaking?” I asked.
They looked at me for some moments, then nodded.
“You have begun your healing. Only begun. You will need to find more compassion and forgiveness for yourself still. It will take time, and it will take patience and kindness. I know of a place you can find that.”
They looked at me, eyes wide. “You can’t mean…”
I nodded. “Reft.”
“They’ll never accept me. Not after this. Not after…”
“I think they will,” I said. “What matters more is whether you’re ready to be accepted and to accept yourself. When you’re ready… they will be there.”
Savat looked into the embers of the fire, losing themself in the shimmering glow.
“Eelie is waiting for you below. They will need your help, and they need even more forgiveness and compassion. I’ve done what I can, but there is much healing for you both to find.”
The signals were changing now, the horns blowing longer and less frantically.
“The war is ending,” I said. “They will be coming for you soon, seeking justice or vengeance for their dead. I don’t have the heart for any more bloodshed. Find Eelie. Leave before they find you. You both need justice and redress as much as the Torfallin do. Find it together.”
Savat looked at me a long time, their eyes haunted. They opened their mouth once and twice, but ultimately said nothing. They rose shakily up to their feet and looked around at the ruins of the sitting room. Their eyes rested on the bodies of Tanith and Sem for several moments. Then they walked out.
I pulled myself up, testing my leg delicately. It hurt and I didn’t dare put my full weight on it, but I was whole enough to stand at least. I picked my way across the glass-strewn carpets, limping slowly to Sem’s body. It took a few moments more for me to figure out how to lower myself without straining my knee.
Sem’s face was relaxed and at peace, finally. I had never noticed the pain and the tension they carried every moment I had known them until now, when the burden was gone. I leaned my head against their still chest and held them for a long time.
“Thank you, my friend,” I whispered. “Thank you for what you taught me and what you gave me. I will do my best to be worthy of it.”
We stayed there together until my heartbeat and breathing lost the ragged edge of fresh pain. Then I got to my feet slowly, still favoring the good leg. I worked my way around the room, picking up Sem’s swords, cleaning the blades and returning them to their scabbards.
First one, then two.
On the couch by the fire, I found a woolen lap blanket. I took this up, shaking away the loose fragments of glass and carefully rolling up the swords in it to make a snug bundle that I tied closed by its corners.
With a deep breath, I slowly made my way down out of the fortress, step by unsteady step, and worked my way through the now open gate and away from the battlefield. I passed through confused masses of soldiers and prisoners. I walked east, into the rolling hills that rose gradually into a rough, mountainous trail.
Somewhere in that direction, there was a horse and two mules waiting: Artem, Beatrice, and a gray mule that would never now be given a name. I had nothing but the threadbare and bloodstained black clothes I wore and the bundle of swords under my arm. My leg ached and throbbed with each step, and the small rocks and broken ground bit at my bare feet.
The sky to the east was beginning to lighten with the coming dawn.
EPILOGUE
WE’RE ALMOST AT the end of our time together. Just over this next pass, Reft awaits you. We should reach it in no more than two days. I know you feel anxious at our arrival, but you know now that I’ve walked the very path you do.
Understand then when I tell you: That place is not the beginning of your journey and it may not be the end. Where your path leads is ultimately up to you. You needn’t listen to my maundering any more. I know you’ve grown tired of my voice and of my tale.
You ask yourself why I didn’t create a Bridge to take us directly to the mountain? Why have we spent months traveling across the endless miles of road and river and stone from your parent’s cottage on the shores of Slié?
It would have saved time. It would have saved you having to listen to me ramble. It would have saved me pain, limping all this way on my bad knee.
I didn’t, because the journey matters. Our time together matters. My pain matters.
The story matters.
Each life and every choice is as unique and varied as every leaf on every tree. What matters in a tale is not the words or the lesson. Skipping to the end of a journey only cheats you of each miles along the way, and it’s the miles that are the important part. The miles make up who you are.
Stories don’t have to have neat endings to be true. They don’t need to explain or satisfy or uplift us. Stories help to tell us what is important, and also help us to understand the cost of what we value.
It’s important that you understand—you who I have cared for these past months. You should know the paths your future may take. You should know why those paths exist—and who gave their lives before you so you could make this journey. More, you should know that the paths are many and varied: long and short and easy and labyrinthine.
There will be others along the way, like me, whose lives may join yours for a time and then diverge. You may find your paths will recross someday. You may never meet again.
And that’s okay.
Life is change, and all paths—as all stories—come eventually to an end.
You’ll also forge your own paths. As carefully as you may walk along in someone else’s footprints, you’ll still leave your own behind you. They may diminish, growing faint in the unrelenting march of time.
But those footprints may also become a sign for someone else to follow.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE LIST OF people I need to thank for the existence of this book is largely the same as those I owe for the existence of book one. My partner who put me up in a hotel to give me the space I needed to finish this book, and who has put up with a lot as I worked to get it published. Everyone on the writing discord server that acts as my writing community, especially Candace, Amara, and Mireille. My therapist and my beta readers: G Stalica, Jordale, Samantha D, and Sara Codair. Of course, I also have to thank my editor Shannon, who has read this book through almost as many times as I have.
It takes many threads to weave a story such as this. All the more because when I started writing Arin’s story three years ago, I thought it would be one book. This is not to say the story itself grew, as I had it mostly outlined from near the beginning. I knew how the end of this book would play out even then.
What I hadn’t expected was how strongly the richness and depth of Arin’s voice would take over the narrative. From the start, I knew that writing in first-person would mean that certain events would be missing from the narrative, because Arin themself wasn’t there to witness them. After all, I could only write what Arin noticed and thought was important to narrate.
Arin, it turns out, is an incredibly curious and inquisitive character. When their voice took over, there was nothing for it but to write down what they saw, what they felt, and what they believed.
In short, I wasn’t prepared for how different Arin’s voice could be from my own.
Of course, Arin and all of the characters in their world are fictions. But I expect that many of my readers will be able to find echoes within their own memories of the same pain suffered in this fantasy world. For you, I hope that I was able to do your experiences some justice and that you might find solace in knowing that you are not alone. I see you. I’m with you.
If you are someone who read and were moved by this story and yet, perhaps like Feren, those echoes were foreign to your experience, please know that there are people in your life—even if you don’t know it right now—that you can stand up and fight for. Please take Arin’s words to heart:
Being an ally is not enough.
It’s time to be something more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
K. N. BRINDLE has worn many different hats in their life, which is impressive considering how difficult it is to find one that fits their extra-large head. They’ve worked as a graphic designer, and in the industrial design and architecture fields. They’ve built telecom equipment. They’ve been an app developer and a software architect, and have taught software engineering. They’re most recently a licensed therapist.
They are fine with any pronouns when used with respect, though they really hate being called “sir.”
They live in the southeastern U.S. with their partner, children, and just the right number of cats.
Also by K. N. Brindle
A Memory of Blood and Magic
Introducing the next exciting novel
in a new science-fiction universe
COMMON ACCORD
by K. N. Brindle
“Fill me in. What are we walking into?”
Windy thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t know the seller’s name. My contact is an intermediary. A bilge-monkey who works station mass transfer. Says he can hook us up with the seller.”
“And how do we know it’s not a set-up or a shake-down?”
“We don’t. But he knows I’ve got a record of the conversation, and that not all of us are going to be there. We don’t make it back out and the record goes to station security.”
Jes shrugged uncomfortably. They wouldn’t second guess her, but they hated working blind on the shady side of the law. They usually played on their instincts, but those instincts needed some context.
Jes and Windy hit the outgoing transit tube and rode it to the down-transition point, transferring to a small, ugly tube car that didn’t even deign to blare ads at them. With a minute to spare, they got off on deck four—the lowest deck on the station that didn’t require pressure suits—and wound their way through the narrow, twisting passages.
Here and there, a light was out or threatening to be soon. More often than not, tool carts or half-empty supply crates or piles of industrial refuse blocked the already narrow access. Some panels were missing from the passage walls and once, they had to step across the yawning gap of an open deck plate.
“Where is this guy?” Jes asked.
“He’s supposed to be waiting for us just ahead,” Windy replied.
They turned a last corner and saw a stick-thin man in a grimy utility jumpsuit—more grease-stain than the light blue it was meant to be.
“You came,” he said. His voice was wheedling and tried hard at a threat that just didn’t carry.
“We came,” Windy said. “Where’s your guy?” she asked him. She was able to put more threat in her voice than he could muster.
His hands came up, placating. “No worries, no worries. All good. The boss is in his office, right through there.” He gestured to the hatch beside him.
Windy and Jes waited for him to open the hatch, then stepped through into a small, battered management office. Just enough room for a narrow terminal desk with a chair on either side facing each other. The space was shockingly well-lit after the gloomy passages, but the extra light didn’t help the cabin to be more appealing.
Windy tensed as she recognized the man who occupied the desk. She heard a sharp breath from Jes behind her and knew they had recognized him too.
“My, my, my. If it isn’t Jes and Windy; Click and Clack. You two still thick as thieves?” He smiled at them, but his voice had an edge.
“Harry,” Windy said.
“Chief,” Jes added, stepping into the tight office. They looked around briefly. “You’ve done well for yourself.”
The former Chief Engineer of the Antares Drift arched his back against the frame of his chair, stretching. “I have. I run this deck. You might say this is my world down here. What happens is whatever I want to happen.”
“It’s… some kind of world,” Jes said, looking over their shoulder to the darkened and neglected passage behind them.
Harry seemed to miss the implication in Jes’s voice, or at least ignored it. “And now you two have come to me. What can I do for you, my good friends?”
“You know what we’re looking for?” Windy said. “Your friend out there told me you could get it for us.”
“All business? No time for an old crewmate?” Harry turned the corners of his mouth down in an exaggerated frown. “I’m hurt, Windy. Hurt. Oh, I have just what you need.” He leaned back in his seat, resting his head against the bulkhead, then leaned forward and opened a hatch under the desk and pulled out a small metal-shielded frame with a wide interface port. It was rectangular, and roughly the size of a dinner plate.
“Question is, do you have what I need?”
“Maybe,” Windy said, looking at the device. “What’s your price?”
“Hmmm.” Harry made a show of considering. Jes and Windy both knew that he had already set his price. “Well, you know, lucky for you I happen to know a little of what you’ve each got in your accounts. A little residual knowledge, you might say.” Harry grinned at them. “How about you sign over your claim and shares from our last haul on the Drift? You get to fly a new ship; I get a little more comfortable down here. Maybe extend my… kingdom.”
Windy felt the blow, and cursed at herself for not nailing down the price beforehand. There was no way either of them would part with what little they had left to live on.
“Try it out,” Harry offered. He placed the chip on the desk. “You brought a reader, I presume?”
Windy stared at him for a moment, then pulled a handheld device from her pocket. It was little more than a socket for the interface port with a power cell attached. She plugged it in and a small green indicator lit up on the end of the reader. Her eyes went glassy as she directed her implant to connect to the reader and scan the chip.
